How GIS Has Changed Our World

Author: jroberson17

Bicycling in the United States is on the rise and as such, the USA has started to incorporate Bikeshare companies in many of the major metropolitan cities of the country. For instance in 2017, there were over 100 bikeshare systems throughout the states. In addition to bikeshare companies, many individuals commute to work using a bike for transportation. In a comparison of cities for those who use bicycles to commute to work, Portland, Oregon was the number 1 city with a rate of 6.1 percent. It is very interesting to note on this map where the highest and lowest rates of commuting to work via bicycle are in the United States. This map was generated from @mapmakerbot using the US Census ACS 2014 5-year data.

The CDC has created a map that shows the Rates of Adults and Adolescents living with a diagnosed HIV infection by the area of residence. This map was created in 2015 with data taken from 2013. Though there are many areas where there is no data seen, The areas with the highest rates are located in the Southeastern USA.

The World Health Organization has posted several maps about information pertaining to Global Health. This one in particular shows the annual mean PM2.5 concentration for each country of the world. What is very interesting is the dark band of countries From China to Cameroon and Peru showing the highest average PM2.5 concentrations.

In a study by the CDC for the year of 2016, the rates of sexually-transmitted infections (STI) per state was studied. The map seen above shows the comparison of the rates of each state. The state with the highest STI rate in 2016 was Alaska; in comparison, the state with the lowest STI rate was Vermont. It is very interesting to see where the states are that have the higher rates (lower numbers on the scale) and most of them are states in the South East.

In an article published on space.com, the spread of Sulfur Dioxide into the atmosphere due to the recent volcano eruption in Guatemala was seen via the Suomi National Polar-Orbiting Partnership Satellite (Suomi NPP). What we see in the image is the amount of SO2 in the air expressed in Dobson units. A Dobson unit is a unit of measurement for the total amount of ozone in the atmosphere above a point on the earth’s surface. One Dobson unit is equivalent to a layer of pure ozone 0.01mm thick at standard temperature and pressure.

This image was generated thanks to Suomi NPP/NOAA/NASA Earth Observatory

The Image below is a view from the satellite of the atmosphere after the eruption on June 3rd, 2018.

Hawaii’s Kilauea Volcano erupted on May 6th, 2018, and it has caused a lot of damage to the state. In this image taken by NASA’s Terra satellite, the plume height of the ash that was released into the air by the volcano is seen. The image was made possible due to the Multi-angle Imaging SpectroRadiometer instrument imbedded in the satellite.

This is a figure that comes from the Environmental Health Prospectives journal that contains the weighted estimates of the population with active asthma (open circles) and estimated percentages of adults with asthma symptoms in the past 14 days (filled circles) across categories of particulate matter ≤ 2.5 μm in diameter (PM2.5). A) deals with the PM2.5 concentration. B) Shows Ozone concentration C) Shows the precipitation levels and D) shows the Temperature in Degrees Fahrenheit.